#Tesla batteries are powering an energy revolution Solarcity generator Tesla motors lithium-ion battery packs aren t just powering electric luxury sports sedans for wealthy any more.
They ve started#appearing in a small number of California homes to store electricity generated by rooftop solar panels,
and Solarcity, the Silicon valley solar installer, will start providing Tesla batteries for businesses that want to cut their utility bills.#
#A big box retailer like Walmart could charge up a Tesla battery pack with cheap energy produced by its Solarcity rooftop photovoltaic array
and then tap that power when demand##and electricity rates##spike. That would let them minimize paying their local utility high##demand charges##for electricity
when they need it most. And the cost of the Solarcity s system, called Demandlogic?
Effectively zero, according to Solarcity, since the monthly payments for energy storage would be less than the money saved by not forking over cash to the utility.
And if that sounds like a threat to century-old monopoly utilities, it is.####Our business model is to become the energy company of the 21st century,
##Solarcity chief executive Lyndon Rive told#The Atlantic.####You re still connected to the grid but the grid would be your secondary provider
such as those in California and parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut where Solarcity is offering Demandlogic.
And to get the Tesla battery pack you have to sign up for a solar array, which means only businesses with low-rise buildings and flat roof##retailers,
allowing them to store electricity from the grid when rates are low and use that power
While Stem is a startup the utilities should be particularly wary of Solarcity and its partnership with Tesla motors.
Tesla chief executive Elon musk serves as Solarcity s chairman and is Rive s cousin.)Tesla and Solarcity s combined market cap##$21. 3 billion##exceeds that of the parent companies of Pacific gas & electric and Southern California Edison, the two big California utilities
whose customers Rive covets. And Solarcity is pioneering#the securitization of solar##giving it the ability to dip into a potentially vast pool of capital by packaging leases for photovoltaic systems into asset-backed notes that are sold to pension funds,
hedge funds and other deep-pocketed investors. Rive says Demandlogic should save commercial customers 20 percent in demand charges.
The system s algorithms constantly monitor electricity supply and demand charging and discharging the battery to minimize drawing expensive electricity from the power grid.
The size of the battery pack will be customized for each business but would be able to store roughly 30 percent of the electricity generated by the solar array.
And the Tesla batteries provide backup power if the grid goes down in an earthquake
but intermittent electricity are generated by wind and solar farms. Lithium-ion batteries remain expensive and Rive and Solarcity spokesman Jonathan Bass was sketchy on the details on how the economics pencil out
when providing energy storage to customers for no money down. But growing economies of scale are in Solarcity and Tesla s favor.##
##In places with high costs of electricity, I think you ll see up to 50 percent of solar systems will have energy storage,
##says Rive.####The economics and scale that Tesla has achieved in the automotive market now make stationary energy storage more cost effective and reliable than it has ever been in the past,##JB Straubel,
#Will 3d printing bring space-based solar power to reality? Spiderfab 3-D robotic printer Since the 1970##s, space-based solar power has been a futuristic fantasy
but the advent of 21st#century 3-D printing may bring it a step closer to reality.
It would##enable construction of large support structures for systems such as multi-hundred-kilowatt solar arrays, large solar sails,
##For#space-based solar power (SBSP), there would be two basic steps, Hoyt explained. First, the 3-D printer would build a carbon fiber truss structure that would act as a frame for the system.
if concentrating solar power was being deployed.####We haven t yet looked in detail at space-based solar,
But a just-completed design analysis for a 300-kilowatt orbital solar array verified that Spiderfab can provide the projected tenfold decrease in stowed volume
TUI also developed a lab version of the device that would fabricate the truss structure in that analysis.##Geostationary solar could produce baseload electricity for 99 percent of the hours of the year,
Terrestrial solar arrays have achieved grid parity Davis said, but without storage they cannot provide the baseload power utilities need.
or triple our electricity rates.####The Solar High Group is working##to put together a consortium of government and industry,
The microwave transmission that would deliver SBSP s electricity from an orbiting antenna to terrestrial rectennas would be##2 million times the power of that produced by the microwave oven.##
#Heat from subways to warm homes in London London s subway will be supplying green energy to warm up more homes around the borough.
which has provided already green energy for 700 homes in the borough. The London Underground vent from a Northern Line station will supply most of the heat,
low cost energy in other parts of the capital because we have dotted electricity substations throughout London
running a fleet of coal fired power plants that have long been the source of cheap electricity. But yesterday, the TVA board of directors voted to shutter eight of those power plants
taking 3, 000 megawatts of carbon-intensive electricity off the grid in the face of intense opposition from coal miners and politicians decrying##Obama s war on coal.##
###That s the equivalent electricity production of three huge nuclear power plants.####These were difficult recommendations to make as they directly impact our employees and communities,
So the TVA directors voted to transform the utility into a power provider that will obtain a majority of its electricity from carbon-free sources.
coal will provide 20 percent of the utility s electricity in the future, down from 38 percent today.
Nuclear power plants will generate 40 percent of electricity while natural gas will supply another 20 percent. The remaining 20 percent will be supplied by renewable sources,
including hydropower, and energy efficiency measures. Meanwhile, in Arizona yesterday, the state s utility regulator turned back a request by Arizona Public service (APS) to#impose steep new fees on homeowners who install solar panels#on their roofs.
It s a battle being fought elsewhere in the country as utilities grapple with an existential threat to their century-old business model.
As more customers generate their own electricity utilities face declining revenues while still retaining responsibility for paying for the transmission system.
In Arizona, for instance, there were 900 solar arrays installed on Arizona residential rooftops in January 2009. By June of this year, that number had grown to 18,000 with 500 more photovoltaic systems being installed each month.
Under a regulatory scheme known as net metering, homeowners receive a credit for the solar electricity they send to the grid that is used to pay for the power they use
when the sun isn t shining. In Arizona, that credit is calculated at retail rates and APS argued that penalized homeowners who don t go solar as the utility will be forced to raise their rates to pay for the transmission system
the expansion of solar capacity meant the utility saved money by not having to build additional power plants and transmission lines.
stick it to consumers and bolster its bottom line,##Rhone Resch, chief executive of the Solar energy Industries Association,
#Off-grid solar is the next big market in clean energy Off-grid solar The off-grid clean energy market is booming.
half the planet s population may be served best with pay-as-you-go solar technology, not grid services.
when it comes to solar power for the poor. The best way to understand this is to consider the case of a villager in Tanzania.
Selling cheap basic services like solar electricity into this market through#micropayment schemes#is what makes pay-as-you-go solar not only economically viable,
the Milton Keynes pod cars will run on electricity, returning to their charging stations between fares.
, generating heat or electric power.####If we burn the plastic, we generate toxins and a large amount of CO2.
To convert that amount takes about 1 kwh of electricity, which is approximately#20 or 20 cents worth.
#Electric power without transmission lines Hundreds of companies are investing in electricity transferred through magnetic fields. Nikola Tesla, the inventor and rival to Thomas Edison, in the early 1900##s built the Wardenclyffe Tower, a 187-foot-high structure on Long island,
which he said could transmit electricity wirelessly. Financier J. Morgan backed the Wardenclyffe Tower. The project failed,
and electricity flowed from faucets when turned on. Oops.####Fast-forward over a century, and wireless electricity is finally gaining some traction.
More than one hundred companies including startups such as Witricity and Proxybypower and giants such as Toyota (TM), Intel (INTC), Samsung,
to take the wires out of the power equation by transmitting electricity through magnetic fields. When in the atmosphere, electricity exists as a magnetic field.
The trick is to capture it safely to recharge devices. Today s electric toothbrushes charge wirelessly##as power is transmitted through a magnetic field from the charger to the brush.
##which means electricity can be moved farther distances without a wire. The way it works: Two devices resonate at the same frequency
##We all love electricity and are willing to do almost anything to get it. It will be the last thing to go wireless,
Because electricity moves through the air as magnetic waves that are similar to the earth s magnetic waves,
powered by solar technology. The defense contractor is hoping to sell its spy rocks for surveillance, border protection
After many years of development and testing, the WMS1000 (shown above) became the world first wind turbine able to produce 1, 000 liters of water a day from air condensation.
and is designed to work with PV solar panels and batteries, to continually generate water even in emergency situations.
#China and India race to fully harness thorium for nuclear power Thorium is an alternative to uranium as a way of doing nuclear fission.
and more sustainable sources of nuclear energy to provide our electricity. And just like in a Hollywood movie,
has announced plans to build a thorium-based nuclear reactor by 2016. But it faces competition from China,
where the schedule to deliver a thorium-based nuclear power plant was overhauled recently, meaning scientists in Shanghai have been told to deliver such a facility within the next ten years.
While thorium nuclear exploration is had not New britain its own reactor in Dorset carrying out tests 40 years ago the will to make it a viable energy source is growing stronger.
because an overheating thorium reactor can be switched simply off, avoiding the problem that occurred at Fukushima, for instance.
And many supporters of green energy believe the nuclear equation should be abandoned not solved. But Prof Barlow thinks those campaigning solely for alternative energy sources such as wind
and solar are missing the bigger picture. If you re trying to move to a low-carbon fuel economy,
And nuclear power has got to be part of that basket t
#Researchers develop new process that raises prospects of 3d printed bone grafts 3d printing could help mend broken bones.
in order to take advantage of the sun s energy, or grow indoors with the help of artificial lights. Vertical farming is promising
Recently, more and more studies have focused on pairing solar panels and wind turbines with greenhouses to provide self-generated renewable electricity on-site.
But the single technology that will be key to making vertical farms possible is lighting. New LED light technology is the key that makes it possible to build vertically integrated farms.
and reduces transmission losses. They re also physically small, have a long service life, lower power consumption, generate less heat,
when wind and solar power interconnection requests added up to enough projects to supply three times the mandate s needs.
and discharges electricity, unlike traditional generation resources that only produce power, she said. That may sound like a simple problem to solve,
and wind power accounts for a growing portion of the capacity now being proposed, which further complicates how it should be treated.
It uses electric charge to separate semiconducting nanotubes useful for transistors from those that conduct electricity like metals
To make the aluminum-air battery even more economical they are produced in areas where electrical energy capacity
Quebec where the company can draw on a significant hydroelectric power resource. Aluminum-air batteries do break down over time.
#Germany generates 74%of power needs from renewable energy Germany impressive streak of renewable energy milestones continues, with renewable energy generation surging to a record portion nearly 75 percent of the country overall electricity demand
electricity prices actually dipped into the negative for much of the afternoon, according to Renewables International. In the first quarter of 2014, renewable energy sources met a record 27 percent of the country electricity demand,
thanks to additional installations and favorable weather. enewable generators produced 40.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity,
up from 35.7 billion kilowatt-hours in the same period last year, Bloomberg reported. Much of the country renewable energy growth has occurred in the past decade and,
as a point of comparison, Germany 27 percent is double the approximately 13 percent of U s. electricity supply powered by renewables as of November 2013.
Observers say the records will keep coming as Germany continues its Energiewende, or energy transformation, which aims to power the country almost entirely on renewable sources by 2050. nce again,
it was demonstrated that a modern electricity system such as the German one can already accept large penetration rates of variable but predictable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar PV power,
said Bernard Chabot, a renewable energy consultant based in France, via email. n fact there are no technical and economic obstacles to go first to 20 percent of annual electricity demand penetration rate from a combination of those two technologies,
then 50 percent and beyond by combining them with other renewables and energy efficiency measures and some progressive storage solutions at a modest level.
To reach the lofty goal of 80 percent renewables by 2050, Germany had to move quickly.
the country has installed an astonishing amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) power setting multiple solar power generation records along the way.
Germany had installed considerably more solar power capacity per capita than any other country. The rapid growth has slowed, however, with 3. 3 GW of PV installed in 2013,
Regardless, a recent analysis by the consulting firm Eclareon found that solar power has reached grid parity in Germany,
the price of commercial solar power is now equal to retail electricity rates. And wind power reached record output levels last year producing a massive 25.2 GW
and accounting for 39 percent of the electricity supply on a single day in December The unprecedented growth of solar PV in particular has been fueled in large part by policies that incentivize clean energy.
Germany simple feed in tariff (FIT) policy, which pays renewable energy producers a set amount for the electricity they produce under long-term contracts,
has driven the solar power boom. But as installations continued to outpace government targets, Germany announced last year that it would begin scaling back its feed in tariff.
The FIT is financed by a surcharge paid by utility customers, but a major part of the problem stems from the fact that industry is largely exempt from the renewables surcharge meaning the burden falls on households.
the transition to renewables includes completely phasing out nuclear power. These goals are only achievable in combination with greatly reduced energy demand.
And retail electricity rates are high and rising, putting pressure on lower income individuals in particular. But many of the criticisms are largely overblown
as renewable energy production continued to grow and energy demand shrank, Germany largest utility chose not to renew two long-term contracts for coal fired power.
And while much is made of rising industrial electricity prices, Lovins points out that in fact, iant German firms enjoy Germany low and falling wholesale electricity prices,
getting the benefit of renewablesnear-zero operating cost but exempted from paying for them. And as for the impact on the consumer
he FIT surcharge raised householdsretail price of electricity seven percent but renewables lowered big industrieswholesale price 18 percent.
and start sending householdstotal electricity prices back down. What more, n Germany you have the option of earning back your payments,
and far more, by investing as little as $600 in renewable energy yourself, Lovins writes. itizens, cooperatives, and communities own more than half of German renewable capacity, vs. two percent in the U s. Challenges aside,
The vision of harvesting solar power from space and beaming it to earth has been around ever since Dr. Peter Glaser first proposed it in 1968.
What most people don realize is that solar panels in space are 10 times more efficient than those on earth
This is about the same output as a typical nuclear power plant. Every year of technological advancement brings a drop in the cost of building it.
solar power industry (one launch per year. Powering the Entire Solar system At first blush, most will imagine a space-based solar array powering our energy hungry businesses on earth,
but that only part of the equation. It can be used to power an entire solar-system of devices,
It has the potential not only to continuously deliver limitless amounts of solar energy to markets On earth,
To construct and operate an electricity-generating satellite, JAXA will have to demonstrate mastery of six critical disciplines:
The two mirrors will be untethered from the solar panels and the separate transmission unit, requiring a far more advanced navigating system to keep them properly aligned.
Scientists are predicting that the HCPVT could provide sustainable energy and fresh water to communities all around the world.
Current solar technologies on the market today are too expensive and slow to produce, require Rare earth minerals and lack the efficiency to make such massive installations practical.
which is attached to a tracking system that determines the best angle based on the position of the sun. Such system can be applied profitably in sunny regions where sustainable energy,
Solar s influence Titan Aerospace caught Google s attention thanks to its innovative dragonfly-shaped drones that are powered by its wing-mounted solar panels
whether the solar technology is advanced currently enough to deliver the kind of long-range reliability that Google will require.
#Altaeros Energies floating wind turbine churns out electricity and Wi-fi This floating turbine, developed by Altaeros Energies could someday travel to every remote corner of the globe.
There, they could deliver electricity and Internet connectivity to people and villages living off-the-grid.
Video) Think of these floating turbines as the wind farms of the future and you won be that far off.
you instantly get data coverage, electricity and local weather data, even if your previous system involved a sun dial and carrier pigeons.
#Wireless electricity is here In the house of the future, wire-free energy transfer could be as easy as wireless internet.
wee not actually putting electricity in the air. What wee doing is putting a magnetic field in the air. It works like this:
Tesla and solar financier and installer Solarcity (Musk other energy company) have been quietly selling small volumes of Tesla batteries as energy storage paired with Solarcity solar projects.
Pairing battery farms with wind and solar panel farms would enable clean power to store energy
when he worked at the National Renewable energy Laboratory and later parallelized by Wang and Andrew Canning after Wang moved to NERSC in 1999.
to help provide funding for Chile first solar-thermal power plant which will supply electricity to the mining industry.
The plant is set to be built by Abengoa SA (ABG) a Spanish company that offers global renewable energy solutions. his project will help prove the economic operation of concentrated solar power technology in the Earth sunbelt,
this technology is suited also for basic electricity supply and therefore highly innovative. Furthermore, the European commission will provide a further#15 million euros,
and therefore has invested in renewable energy resources and innovative technologies to improve efficiency. The plant is expected to be operational by 2017
Imergy flow batteries from low-grade vanadium will also be capable of storing more energy per kilogram than conventional vanadium flow batteries by more than twice, giving cell phone operators, solar power plant developers, microgrid owners
Wee taking industrial sludge and turning it into a source of clean energy said Bill Watkins, CEO of Imergy Power systems. t the same time,
(or solar panels) are less. That said I loved it the first time I saw one at the Vancouver World's Fair around 1987.
And since all they require is a steady supply of electricity, laser weapons may also be more reliable than conventional weapons.
#Transparent solar windows generate energy without obstructing the view Imagine being able to generate solar energy on the surface of every window
"Luminescent solar concentrators generate electricity by concentrating radiation most often, non-ionizing solar radiation. They convert it by luminescence
is guided to the edge of a clear plastic panel where it is converted then to electricity using thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells.
"It opens a lot of area to deploy solar energy in a non-intrusive way, "said Lunt.""It can be used on tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e reader.
Even better the filtration system uses just 2. 5 kilowatts (2500 watts) of electricity per hour so it's energy-efficient too.
Graphene is also an incredibly efficient conductor of heat and electricity. All of these qualities make it valuable for use in electronics and a variety of other applications,
"Those applications could include better solar cells,"smart"coatings, new kinds of computers and all kinds of other devices or components.
because solar panels can return power to the grid and make your meter spin backwards. Japanese companies are fascinated with net-zero energy buildings,
A 9. 5-kilowatt solar array, backed up by a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium battery and a 10-kilowatt DC car charger.
and run on stored solar power. A geothermal system with eight, 20-foot deep boreholes uses a heat pump to heat
and cool the home floors and ceiling all year. LED lighting, with five times the efficiency of conventional illumination, is used throughout.
essentially creating"living materials"that can be integrated into everyday objects and devices, from solar panels to adjustable furniture,
Improved batteries and solar cells could be produced, and biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose could be used for the conversion of agricultural waste into biofuels.
In the case of robotic muscles electrical energy not temperature change would drive the contraction of fibers.
and close heavy windows in a building in response to the air temperature without motors or electricity which the researchers demonstrated.
a large machine/small waste treatment plant developed by Janicki Bioenergy (an offshoot of Sedro-Woolley-based Janicki Industries)
but electricity used to power the machine itself. Any leftover electricity generated through the process is fed back into the power grid.
The small amount of solid waste that comes out on the other end is no longer poop
000 people and, from that, produce 86,000 liters of clean water on a daily basis while also generating a net 250 kilowatts of electricity.
"Really, the options that are available are salvage logging of the wood for biomass or long-lived wood products to keep the carbon from the atmosphere,
The models suggested that there are between 0. 8 billion tonnes and 2 billion tonnes of fish biomass in the oceans.
The resulting films conduct electricity better than any other sample of graphene produced in the past. Until recently
His team is also looking at using the graphene electrodes in photovoltaic cells. Easing the pain
India wants to increase the proportion of its electricity generated from nuclear sources from 2. 8%to 25%by 2050.
or more new reactors to join the 17 existing ones and the 6 that are under construction.
The Nuclear power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) in Mumbai expects this month to finalize a total of US$15 billion in contracts with France's Areva group
but are due this month to visit India and scout out possible locations for reactors.
The NPCIL has readied four sites one for each vendor each capable of accepting eight to ten imported reactors.
On 5 december, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed a deal in New delhi that paves the way for four more 1-gigawatt reactors over the next decade,
says Ravi Bhushan Grover, director of strategic planning in India's Department of Atomic energy (DAE) and a key negotiator of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Within India, DAE employees are concerned that an influx of proposed new reactors could lead to quality standards being compromised.
The country's Atomic energy Regulatory Board will have to inspect and clear several new reactors of different designs as they are approved."
"Our primary concern is over safety, "says A. Sathasivam, president of the National Federation of Atomic energy Employees.
Om Pal Singh, the board's secretary, says the problem is simply a lack of manpower.
and Padmanabha Krishnagopala Iyengar, former DAE secretary, claim that Indian nuclear scientists are giving up prematurely on their thorium research programme in exchange for a few uranium reactors from abroad.
its thorium research programme focuses on turning the material into fissile uranium-233 for use as reactor fuel.
Fast breeder reactors, of the type under construction in Kalpakkam, would breed uranium-233 in thorium blankets surrounding a plutonium core.
#South korea makes billion-dollar bet on fusion power South korea has embarked on the development of a preliminary concept design for a fusion power demonstration reactor in collaboration with the US Department of energy's Princeton Plasma physics Laboratory (PPPL) in New jersey.
the##15-billion (US$20-billion) experimental reactor being built in Cadarache, France, under the auspices of an international collaboration.
K-DEMO is intended to be the next step toward commercial reactors and would be the first plant to actually contribute power to an electric grid."
K-DEMO will serve as prototype for the development of commercial fusion reactors. According to the PPPL, it will generate"some 1 billion watts of power for several weeks on end,
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